Fewer crimes reported in 2019, says Peterborough police report

Decreases also noted in communities Lakefield and Cavan Monaghan

Police-reported crimes in Peterborough dropped 6.1 per cent between January and September 2019 compared to the same period last year.

A new report shows there were 3,779 crimes reported to city police in the city in the first nine months of 2019, compared to 4,023 in the same period in 2018 (or 144 fewer incidents).

Some types of crime — theft of money from a car, for instance — sometimes go unreported because people decide not to call police, said Peterborough police Chief Scott Gilbert.

“We do encourage people to report things to us, but not everyone does that,” Gilbert said at a police services board meeting Tuesday evening where the crime statistics were reviewed.

Gilbert also noted that it’s now possible to report crimes to police online, and he thinks this will encourage more reports.

There have been no murder investigations in the first three quarters of 2019, while there was one in 2018. There were three murder attempts so far this year, however — and charges were laid in each attempt.

There were decreases noted in some areas of crime so far this year. Fifty drug investigations took place to the end of the third quarter of 2019, compared to 85 in that period in 2018 (a decrease of 41.2 per cent).

But that doesn’t necessarily mean less drug activity in Peterborough, the report says. Drug officers are finding themselves testifying in court this year over last year’s many investigations, leaving them less time to conduct fresh investigations.

Fraud is down 10 per cent, with 284 incidents to September 2019, compared to 318 to September 2018, 34 fewer incidents.

Meanwhile, there were 144 incidents of sexual assault reported to police to September 2019 compared to 100 in the same period last year, an increase of 44 per cent.

But over the last few years, Peterborough police have re

ceived provincial government funding to train officers on how to make victims of sexual offences feel more comfortable making a police report.

Police have been working with Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre (KSAC) to offer the training, and Insp. Neil Collins said it appears to be having its intended effect.

“The fact that (reports of sexual assault) are going up isn’t a bad thing — at all,” he said.

Calls to police not related to crime — calls over mental health crises, for example, or noise complaints — have also increased 2.7 per cent this year over last.

There were 18,755 non-offence calls to police in the first nine months of 2019, compared to 18,267 during that same period in 2018 (or 488 more calls).

There was also a 2.4 per cent decrease in car collisions in Peterborough, with 1,916 reported crashes in the first three-quarters of 2019, compared to 1,964 in 2018 (or 48 fewer reported collisions).

The police board also reviewed the crime statistics for Cavan Monaghan Township and the village of Lakefield (both are patrolled on contract by city police).

Reported crime is down in Lakefield 7.7 per cent in the first three-quarters of 2019 compared to 2018, with 36 crimes compared to 39. In Cavan Monaghan Township, the decrease in crime is 8.4 per cent for the first nine months of 2019 compared to 2018 (83 crimes last year, 76 this year).